July is about to end, and despite this, there are 10 ministries that have not executed even half of the budget allocated for this year, according to data from the portal of the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) to the 20th of this month.
The sector that has disbursed the least is Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism (Mincetur), which registers an advance of 30.7%followed by Transport and Communications with 34.5%, and Environment with 36.7%.
Other portfolios that also lag behind are those of Agrarian Development and Irrigation (37.4%), Education (38.8%), Energy and Mines (39.1%), Culture (43.9%), MEF (46.6%), Health (46.7%), and Women and Vulnerable Populations (49.2%).
And despite the fact that in previous years progress has also been slow in the first half of the year, analysts now see slower progress in the face of the political crisis and constant ministerial changes. It should be noted that during the entire administration of Pedro Castillo there have been more than 50 ministers in total.
Staff turnover
The ex-head of the MEF, Carlos Oliva, indicated that there are two reasons why the budget is not executed. One of them, he detailed, is related to an administration problem and because the civil service has not been applied.
“Personnel turnover is high because the heads of the ministries change. Every time a minister enters, he takes the people away from him and that has been constant in this government. It is true that before this management the rotation was also presented, but at least one good one was exchanged for another good one, ”he commented.
For its part, the former Vice Minister of Economy and professor at the Universidad del Pacífico (UP), Carlos Casasagreed that rotation affects the budget execution and explained that this is due “to the fact that the priorities” of each official who enters may be different.
“Priorities can change and there is always a learning curve. Also, thinking wrongly, if a minister has particular interests he is going to change some things according to what interests him”, he stated.
In addition to this situation, there are officials within the ministries who have the management of the budget in their hands, but for fear of the cases of corruption that have been seen in recent years, they are afraid to sign documents.
“Honest officials are afraid to sign if there is a contest, if they feel that there is something strange, they prefer to leave it there, “said Casas.
low execution
Meanwhile, Lety Gómez, an economic studies analyst at ComexPerú, explained that in the first semester there was a budget execution of 25% in the national government, the lowest figure in the last seven years (without taking into account 2020 due to the pandemic).
According to the export union, in the first six months, the Executive’s public spending was 2.5% less than that used in the same period last year, that is, S/950 million less was spent.
DATA
- According to ComexPerú, Loreto leads the budget execution ranking with 50% progress in the first semester.
- The budget for investment projects has almost doubled, going from S/32,632 million in 2011 to S/60,337 million in 2022.
